Weekend Box Office Predictions: The Beast will make Ghosts and Babies Out of Competition
At the moment, this March has been the fifth largest of all time at the domestic box office. Thanks to box office giants like Beauty and the Beast, Kong: Skull Island, and Logan are making that possible, and now we close out the month with two new wide releases: Ghost in the Shell and The Boss Baby. We also have The Zookeeper’s Wife opening, if the numbers are correct, in a moderate-limited release, plus all the holdovers from the past couple of weeks. Let’s get started.
First place looks like it will still go to Beauty and the Beast. While the new animated film The Boss Baby will be targeting the family audience, and the film has already been out for two weeks, I’m seeing a third weekend gross that’s definitely less than $50 million. I’m going with a 50% drop and $45.2 million. Obviously after last weekend, Disney’s live-action remake is heading for a domestic total close to $500 million if it holds on well enough, and will definitely pass The Hunger Games (2012) as the highest grossing film ever released in March. The number it has to beat is $408 million. There’s an off chance it reaches that new record by the end of this weekend or early next week, depending on the daily results for the rest of this week and of course that weekend number.
Between the two new releases, it’s a tough call for which is going to challenge Beast for the next best performance this weekend. For one, family audiences haven’t had all that great a selection so far this year. Sure, The LEGO Batman Movie was out, and Beauty and the Beast is killing it with families, but animated fare outside of LEGO Batman hasn’t hit the highs of yesteryear exactly. So I’m going to give the edge to The Boss Baby. The voice cast includes Alec Baldwin, Tobey Maguire, Jimmy Kimmel, Steve Buscemi, and Lisa Kudrow, so that might draw in some adults in addition to the kids, and the marketing campaign has hit all the key spots. The film does have really bad reviews, though, and only 30% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes give the film a recommendation. Tracking has the film reaching $33 million this weekend, and I’m going just a bit above that, $36 million. The film does open in 3,773 theaters this weekend, so the per-theater average should hang around $9,541.
The other wide release, Ghost in the Shell, also looks to make a bit of a splash at the box office this weekend. The starpower of Scarlett Johansson should be enough for the film to clear $30 million, regardless of how many people are familiar or noobs with the material. I fall into the later, but other than Scar Jo, Juliette Binoche is the only other bankable (?) actor or actress headlining the cast. Still, the marketing has been doing a great job and critics are liking it with 73% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film opens in 3,400 theaters, though, which might prevent it from beating Boss Baby and tracking has it opening at $32 million. I think the good reviews will help it out, and we’re looking at a weekend of $33 million. So yes, if it comes any closer it could usurp Boss Baby and be second to Beast, unless that one really drops off, but I don’t think a huge decline is in order. My number would mean a per-theater average of $9,706.
For fourth and fifth place we’ll see holdovers Power Rangers, Kong: Skull Island and Life duking it out. I think I’m safe putting Power Rangers in fourth place. After it’s opening weekend, I think we’ll actually see a better result than most are thinking. I’m saying it only falls 40% and hits $24.1 million. Then for fifth, it’ll be close between those other two. For one thing, Kong‘s key demographics will be checking out Ghost in the Shell and have probably already seen the film, but still, Life came in lower than expected last weekend, and the word-of-mouth has come off as somewhat of a disappointment of a film. I’ll go with Kong: Skull Island falling 55% and hitting $6.6 million to close out the top five.
So that leaves the other newcomer, The Zookeeper’s Wife out of the top five, and with only 450 theaters showing it and not much of a marketing campaign, I think an opening outside the top ten is even possible. The film does feature Jessica Chastain and Daniel Bruhl are two bankable stars, but critics are mixed, 57% at the moment on Rotten Tomatoes, and tracking numbers are not available. I think the novel has enough followers and the star-power should be enough for it to squeeze out $1 million with this few theaters, and $2,222 would be the per-theater average.
Now for the follow-up to last week’s predictions. Beauty and the Beast indeed took the top spot, and only fell off 48% for a $90.4 million second weekend, much better than my $78.6 million prediction. Second place indeed went to Power Rangers, which rangled in $40.3 million, a bit lower than my $45 million prediction, which was higher than most people had it. Third place was incorrectly predicted for Life, which I had earning $14.5 million. It ended up in fourth place with $12.5 million, so that was actually closer than tracking’s $16 million, but still wrong place. The actual third place spot went to Kong: Skull Island, which hit $14.6 million, actually very close to my fourth place $13.9 million prediction. And fifth place went to Logan, which dropped 42% for a $10.3 million fourth weekend. My prediction was $9.7 million, so that wasn’t so far off. I did have CHIPS outside the top five, and it landed in seventh place earning $7.7 million, much better than my lowball $6 million prediction, and my projection for Slamma Jamma was not even close. It came in 11th place and hit $1.6 million, off from my $2.5 million prediction. So while the past few weeks have been kind to me, this weekend is the toughest yet this pre-summer season, and I will admit right now that a few guesses from today’s blog could end up being totally off the mark. This will be an exciting weekend at the box office, and hopefully we get closer and closer to that record.
